Atelier du relieur du roi - Gomar Estienne.

cyclopaedia.org
COMPARATIVE IMPLEMENTOLOGY
French Decorative Bookbinding - Sixteenth Century
Atelier du relieur du roi, Gomar Estienne 1547 - 1556

(click on this image to see an enlargement.)

The reproduction shown above is found in RELIURES ROYALES DE LA RENAISSANCE Fabienne Le Bars and Marie-Pierre Laffitte, BnF 1999. It is dated as being made around 1550 almost certainly by the relieur do roi, Gomar Estienne, in the atelier de Fontainebleau. The authors do not name the binder, due to the fact that they are still unable to say for certain that it was Gomar Estienne and not Claude de Picques who decorated this folio sized binding. We see on this binding a limited number of azured tools and the absence of the three quarter of a circle tool C. de. P. 47. Below In Comparative Diagram 1, I have assembled the imprints found on binding 55 and place them next to Nixon's rubbings from his 1965 catalogue for the British Museum entitled Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier. Imprints that are not found in Nixon's catalogue have been given continuous numbering from Nixons last tool, in this series, C. de P. 78.

Comparative Diagram 1 - imprint samples from binding 55
(RELIURES ROYALES DE LA RENAISSANCE Fabienne Le Bars and Marie-Pierre Laffitte, BnF 1999). vs H. M. Nixon's 1965 catalogued rubbings.

(click on this image to see an enlargement.)

(click on this image to see an enlargement.)

The reproduction shown above is also found in RELIURES ROYALES DE LA RENAISSANCE Fabienne Le Bars and Marie-Pierre Laffitte, BnF 1999. and dated as being made around the same time period of 1550, it is very similar in many ways to the binding shown at the top of the page. It was obviously made in the same atelier, yet we see in this second binding (No. 53) a far greater range of tools (at least 27), some of the tools that were used on No. 55 were not used on No.53, even though many more tools were employed to make an essentially similar decoration. The all important placement of the armorial centerpiece appears near perfect in No. 53 and a bit off the mark on No. 55... were these bindings executed by the same binder? Could an inventory of the tools used on each binding, reveal the identity of the actual binder?

Comparative Diagram 2 - imprint samples from binding 53
(RELIURES ROYALES DE LA RENAISSANCE Fabienne Le Bars and Marie-Pierre Laffitte, BnF 1999). vs H. M. Nixon's 1965 catalogued rubbings

(click on this image to see an enlargement.)

click on this link to see the next page: ATELIER AU TREFLE.

information about the author

return to the home page of VIRTUAL BOOKBINDING

l.a.miller@mail.pf